S.F. schools shun own workers, lawsuit says

Erin McCormick, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Friday, October 20, 1995

1995-10-20 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco school district has given out $7 million in new architecture contracts to private companies while its own employees sit idle, according to a lawsuit.

The suit, filed by a private citizen but backed by the union representing the district's in-house architects and engineers, charges that the school renovation design work that used to be done by district staff members has been turned over to a host of private companies.

A district official says employees have plenty of work but acknowledges that some of the contracts went to small, local firms that helped the district pass a June 1994 bond issue that is paying for dozens of school construction projects.

"These are all architects who walked the streets, who participated with the superintendent to get the bond measure passed and now they're being rewarded," said Raphael Parra, the district's director of facilities design.

As a result, union officials say, the district's own architects and engineers are being paid to sit around or do menial filing tasks. One architect even said he had spent the last few months watching the O.J. Simpson trial on TV.

"Sitting around doing nothing'&lt;

"People have been sitting around doing nothing and being paid out of bond money," said David Novogrodsky, business manager for Local 21 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. The union represents the school district's 16 architects and engineers, who make between $42,000 and $88,000 a year.

District officials dispute the claim, saying that with the building boom spawned by voter approval of the $95 million school construction bond, there is plenty of work for everyone - civil service employees and private contractors.

Parra conceded that some projects that had originally been started by in-house employees had been turned over to contractors. But he said he had a whole list of projects to give to staffers.

"We have an ocean of work," he said. "We need everybody involved."

33 contracts to companies&lt;

In May, the school board awarded 33 contracts to local design and engineering companies, many of which are small architecture firms owned by minorities or women. The jobs range from a $62,000 contract to design plans for earthquake repair, asbestos removal and toilet rehabilitation at San Francisco Community Elementary School to a $1.2 million contract to design a whole new building for John O'Connell High School.

District officials say they intend to finish the dozens of individual renovations, earthquake repair and new construction jobs that will be financed by the bond as rapidly as possible. In fact, a few of the minor contract repair jobs started in May have already been completed.

"In certain circumspect areas, where the design work is specific and short term, we have gone to outside contractors," said school board President Leland Yee.

"We don't want to bring on staff and then have to lay them off a couple months later."

He said that as far as he knew, the district's architects and engineers weren't sitting around with nothing to do.

"If that is the case, then I'd be one individual that would right now look at the entire department and find work for them to do," Yee said.

Suit's allegations&lt;

The lawsuit against the district, filed Sept. 27 in San Francisco Superior Court as a taxpayer suit by former city firefighter Anthony Sacco, charges that the district has gone far beyond what is allowed by the contracting provisions in the City Charter - and has, in fact, taken all the work from the district's in-house design staff.

The suit charges that the district took several projects that were nearly complete away from the architecture staff and gave them to contractors to redo. It seeks to stop the district from contracting work out that can be performed by its civil service employees.

Parra said the plans had been reassigned to contractors because some of the versions prepared by the in-house staff were more than a year old, had been commissioned under different management and may not have been up to date.

Both sides point to a larger issue underlying the dispute - the citywide question of whether the massive bursts of construction allowed by bond funding should be done by in-house government employees or private companies.

"It's a real battle between civil service and the private sector," Parra said. "In the past, they (former school leaders) have passed bonds to secure civil service jobs rather than being concerned with the condition of the schools.

"When we step up the pace (and use both contractors and civil service employees to get the job done quickly), we find there's a higher percentage of the dollars going for brick and mortar - and not for overhead," he said.

Vulnerable to scams&lt;

But union officials say relying heavily on contractors leaves the district vulnerable to scams and overcharges and makes it hard to oversee the quality of work done.

The suit charges that city officials never did an analysis to determine whether it's cheaper to contract out.

Nine of 32 contractors that were awarded contracts made contributions to the campaign fund that helped get the bond approved by the voters. All the donations were fairly modest - ranging from $200 to $1,000.

Parra said local construction firms were some of the proposition's biggest boosters.

"They campaigned; they raised money; they volunteered; they actually walked the streets," said Parra, who worked on the 1994 campaign himself. "That's why the private sector feels so close to this. They feel the Local 21 folks are trying to take something away from them."

But union leader Novogrodsky said, "I don't think there should be a relationship between working on a campaign and getting business from The City. These decisions should be based on merit.

"The school district is not there to provide work for contractors, nor for architects and engineers. It's there to educate kids."

Now Playing:

Union says staff sits idle; district disagrees but

concedes design contracts went to political supporte&lt;

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.